2024 NBA Playoffs: Will Points Scored Help The Phoenix Suns?

There aren’t a lot of NBA franchises that have the dichotomy of regular season success and postseason failure that the Phoenix Suns have amassed over the years, with the state’s lone NBA franchise making the postseason on a regular basis and reaching three NBA Finals, while winning zero of them.

Throw in the hoopla that surrounded Phoenix’s splashy trades for Kevin Durant last season and Bradley Beal last summer and the ballyhooed decision to part ways with head coach Monty Williams and bring in Frank Vogel and you have a sense of the pressure cooker that is the 2023-24 Phoenix Suns across Arizona sports betting.

This year’s Suns team didn’t help their cause in the first two games of their first round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, either, with Vogel’s team finding themselves in an early hole before Game 3 on Friday night. Keep eyes on the Suns Championship Odds here all postseason.

BetArizona wanted to see how the Suns match up against the past NBA Champions. Using Sports-Reference.com, BetArizona decided to investigate the past 10 NBA Champions* to see what the average win-loss percentage and average points scored during the season was. Based on this, the Phoenix Suns average more points per game than past champions but have less in-season wins.

Note: We only factored in seasons with 82 regular season games, removing the 2020-21, 2019-20, and 2011-12 seasons from the data.

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2023-24 Suns Performance

W-L %	Points Scored
.598	116.2

Since 2010, the “worst” team to win the Larry O’Brien trophy by regular season win percentage were the 2023 Denver Nuggets and 2022 Golden State Warriors, who both ended the regular season at .646 before winning it all.

Conversely, the “best” winners were the Golden State Warriors of 2014-15 and 2016-17, with both posting regular season win percentages of .817, knocking off LeBron James’ Miami Heat team of 2012-13, which had a figure of .805.

Average NBA Champion’s Performance

Avg. W-L %	Avg. Points Scored
.729	109.3

Since that 2010-11 season, the average win percentage of the eventual champion in the NBA was .729, while those teams averaged 109.3 points per game in the years where they hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy.

In 2023-24, the Suns averaged 116.2 PPG, which would put Phoenix on pace with other recent champs, though their inability to win games at the same level of other league winners could be a bit of a red flag for Phoenix.

Right now, Vogel’s bunch has to flip the script at home on Friday, as Phoenix looks to get back in their first round series against the Timberwolves.

Keep it here for more on the Suns and the best Arizona betting apps.

Author

Christopher Boan

@cgboan

Christopher Boan is the lead writer at BetArizona.com after covering sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.